Letter LXXX

Dearest, will the world be more bearable to you when I am out of it? It is
selfish of me not to wish so, since I can satisfy you in this so soon!
Every day I will try to make it my wish: or wish that it may be so when
the event comes--not a day before. Till then let it be more bearable that
I am still alive: grant me, dearest, that one little grace while I live!

Bearable! My sorrow is bearable, I suppose, because I do bear it from
day to day: otherwise I would declare it not to be. Don't suffer as I
do, dearest, unless that will comfort you.

One thing is strange, but I feel quite certain of it: when I heard that I
carried death about in me, scarcely an arm's-length away, I thought
quickly to myself that it was not the solution of the mystery. Others
might have thought that it was: that because I was to die so soon,
therefore I was not fit to be your wife. But I know it was not that. I
know that whatever hopes death in me put an end to, you would have married
me and loved me patiently till I released you, as I am to so soon.

It is always this same woe that crops up: nothing I can ever think can
account for what has been decreed. That too is a secret: mine comes to
meet it. When it arrives shall I know?